


we could go on for forever [this way]

by pagan_mint



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: Bloody Makeouts, Feels For Days, M/M, Mayhem, Murder, Swearing, Whump, concept: sabal's an asshole, experimental piece, let Ajay Ghale rest 2k17, wherein sabal contrives to be more of a drama queen than pagan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 01:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10843341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagan_mint/pseuds/pagan_mint
Summary: every revolution starts and ends with his lips - rupi kaur





	we could go on for forever [this way]

**Author's Note:**

> title lyrics from "for forever" from the musical dear evan hansen
> 
> a good old five times he did, one time he didn't oneshot. someone take bittersweet musicals and sad romance poetry away from me, what's next, a moulin rouge au (yes)

_every revolution_

_starts and ends_

_with his lips_

 

_-rupi kaur-_

_*_

 The first time Sabal kills Ajay, it is on the shore of Jalendu, on a beach stained with the blood of men and women whose only crime had been taking Amita’s side.

Ajay’s own blood gurgles up into his throat, flooding his windpipe and spilling from his mouth. He tries to choke out a word – _why_ – but he cannot speak, cannot _breathe_.

Sabal understands anyway – of course he does, he has always known Ajay’s mind better than Ajay himself – and drags his fingers up the line of his throat, to the tip of his chin, watching idly as thick black-red blood that stings the air with the smell and taste of copper spills across his skin.

“Because, brother,” and the familiar endearment twists in Ajay’s gut harder than the blade Sabal has buried in it. “You don’t need two heads.”

The rocks bite through Ajay’s jeans and into his skin as he hits his knees on the ground, the water of the lake behind him lapping sloppily at his sneakers. He leans forward, or perhaps he falls; either way, his forehead ends up pressed against the inside of Sabal’s thigh, and he smells gunpowder and cheap Kyrati cigarette smoke as the older man rakes a blood-slick hand through his hair, like a lover looking for something to hold onto.

“Thank you,” Sabal says. “For everything,” and if it was just a worthless platitude it would have hurt less than the knowledge that he is genuinely grateful.

The son of Mohan cannot see, cannot breathe, and his last moment of conscious awareness in Kyrat and on Earth is the dry press of scarred lips against his. 

* * *

 The second time Sabal kills Ajay, it is as much of a surprise as the first, because the first had seemed all too real as so many dreams do, and in the end Ajay had woken up and found himself alive and written it off as a particularly vivid nightmare.

And so he trusts Sabal, takes the drink he is offered, watches with disbelief as the cup falls from suddenly clumsy fingers, a creeping numbness spreading through him on its way to his heart.

“It’s not personal,” Sabal says, leaning across the table. He has taken his ponytail down, and his hair is falling like a tumbling waterfall down the side of his face, and even in the midst of the realization that he is being murdered all Ajay can think is _beautiful, my God, he’s so beautiful._ “You’re simply not what is best for Kyrat.” He reaches, and with the last of his strength Ajay reaches back, their fingers tangling together on top of old, scarred wood. “It’s what Mohan would have wanted.”

“What about what you want?” Ajay demands, past the paralysis crawling into his throat and closing off his vocal chords. Sabal smiles, and rises, and comes close, pressing their joined hands to Ajay’s chest and leaning over him in his chair.

“What _I_ want,” the leader of the Golden Path murmurs, “is irrelevant.”

This kiss is hard, brief, ends before it seems like it even began, and instead of the heat of another mouth on his, the last thing Ajay feels before this death is the pressure of a calloused palm against his face.

* * *

 Ajay is expecting it, the third time; expecting and expecting, watching and waiting, until it seems less like reality and more like paranoia. And because he is expecting it, it seems like cruel irony that this time it would be an accident.

“Ajay,” Sabal rasps, and his voice reflects the agony spreading through the younger man’s chest. “Kyra, _no_ , I will not have you taken from me, not now, not when we are finally – when _Kyrat_ is finally - ”

Perhaps _accident_ is not the right word for an assassination attempt, Ajay muses, gazing with unseeing eyes up at the high arch of the temple ceiling. Still, it sort of was one; he certainly didn’t plan to step in front of Sabal at exactly the wrong time. Or the right time. He still isn't sure which.

“Someone get a _fucking_ medic,” Sabal screams, and his voice is raw and desperate and the exact opposite of everything it has been the last two times his blood has been on Ajay’s hands. “Ajay – _Ajay_ – ”

It’s not his fault, it never has been, but for some reason the last word Ajay chooses to say is a choked _sorry_.

“Fuck, no, _fuck_ ,” and he’s barely conscious of the kiss this time. “Kyrat will feel Yalung’s teeth for this, brother. I swear it to you.”

Blackness. Cold. And then – 

* * *

 It is the fourth time, and they are at the Tarun Matara’s Sleep, and there is water in Ajay’s lungs and Sabal’s tongue laving at his teeth.

Apparently, this time his sin was simply being born.

“Your mother was the Tarun Matara, and you are the Tarun Matara’s child, and until your death, Bhadra cannot unlock her full potential.” Sabal had explained it like a teacher would explain a simple math problem, or a history fact. And Ajay had listened, nodding politely, enjoying the clear weather and the older man’s presence, with no alarm bells going off until it was too late and practiced fingers were locking around his throat and icy water closing over his head.

It seems Sabal will not, cannot ever let him go without a final kiss, some last indication of ownership, of the twisted bond that ties them together. He forces his way past Ajay’s lips, and Ajay lets him, even as he is held pressed to the murky bottom of the lake, as his body jerks and writhes in a desperate effort to fight its way to air and freedom.

Ajay’s eyes are stinging, and it could be the water or the lack of oxygen but he knows it’s his own tears, because even as the world starts to fade, even as Sabal takes his life from him yet another time, he knows he will let it happen again, and again, and – 

* * *

 “Again?” Ajay says, a little incredulously, because he had stupidly thought he could avoid it this time.

“ _Again_?” Sabal responds, and his voice is amplified by Pagan Min asking the same thing at the same moment. “What do you mean, _again_?” the rebel leader continues.

“I’ve been through this four times now,” Ajay bites out. “Four times, and I don’t know why or how or what’s going on, but every time _you_ kill me and every time I come back, and every time I try something different and _every time_ I die anyway. I thought maybe it was – maybe it was me, maybe if I made radically different choices for once – ”

“Please refrain from whatever ludicrous lie you’re about to spew as an explanation for why you have utterly disgraced your father’s good name by siding with this narcissistic tyrant,” Sabal snarls. The gun he holds is heavy, and he presses it hard into the base of Ajay’s throat. The younger man makes a choking noise, but the rebel leader doesn’t care. Pagan does, however, jerking forward in the chains that are holding him to the wall.

“Leave him alone,” he snaps, and there is none of his usual lackadaisical tone or witticism. He is no longer a king; he is simply a tragically lonely man, trying to protect the only family he has left. “Don’t lay your filthy terrorist hands on him.”

Sabal slams the pistol into the wall above Ajay’s head, leaning into the younger man as he glares at Pagan Min. “You dare call _me_ a terrorist!” he shouts, and Ajay is desperate to keep him from acting, from killing a man who has made many mistakes but has finally found his way home, from killing a man who is old and tired and wants to put the past behind him – and Sabal is just close enough, Ajay's chains just loose enough, for him to lunge forward and capture the other man’s lips with his.

The kiss feels like it has always felt: it feels _right_ , like something that has been meant to happen, like something he has been waiting for his whole life. And then it feels familiar in all the wrong ways; hot, flooded with liquid warmth, with the tang of copper on his tongue and the dull ringing of a gunshot in his ears.

Pagan is screaming, his voice deeper than usual in his visceral rage, but Ajay can’t make out what he’s saying. After a moment, he realizes that it’s because the man is shouting in Mandarin, _shrieking_ , shredding his own vocal chords as he draws down what must be curses upon Sabal, upon the Golden Path, upon the whole of Kyrat.

After another moment, he realizes that Sabal’s lips are still on his.

Sabal seems to realize the same thing at the same time, pulling away sharply to stare him down with a gaze that matches the chill of the Himalayas. “Rot in Hell, son of Mohan,” he sneers, and past his fear and the pain and the ravages of loss in Pagan’s voice, Ajay finds it somewhere within him to sneer back.

“I’ve always been Ishwari’s son,” he spits, and has the satisfaction of watching his blood spray across Sabal’s war-worn jacket before his world once again, inevitably, ends. 

* * *

 “You chose to cut your own throats,” Sabal shouts, “ _not_ me.”

“Sabal,” Ajay says, stepping forward, and as the older man turns to stare him down with cold eyes, Ajay pulls him into a kiss, a hard press of passion and regret and everything he’ll never get to say.

“Brother,” Sabal murmurs when they finally break apart. His gaze is full of relief, and his hand comes up to tangle in Ajay’s hair. It is a loving gesture, a caring one, and all it makes Ajay think about is blood and the bite of stones and gravel in his knees. “I had hoped you would come to understand.”

“Sins against the gods must be washed away with blood,” Ajay recites, from a speech he has heard too many times in too many different lives.

“Ajay,” Sabal rasps, and then “son of _Mohan_ ,” and pulls them back together.

The savior of Kyrat smiles tight against his mouth, and it is the wry, guileless smile of a man who has become uncomfortably familiar with the inevitability of his own death.

“We’ve committed so many,” he murmurs, “I figured it would take both of us to atone.”

“Wha – ” Sabal begins, and then breaks off, his eyes going wide as Ajay plunges the kukri into him from behind.

The blade is sharp, and long enough to easily cut through Sabal and into Ajay. By now, blood is more familiar to his lungs than air, and Ajay tells Sabal as such, pulling the older man close as he murmurs meaningless platitudes into the arc of his ear.

“ _Why_ ,” Sabal asks finally, and Ajay chokes on a laugh.

“You said it yourself,” he whispers, letting the world fade away from the outside in as they sink to their knees on the ground. “You don’t need two heads.”

He doesn’t know if Sabal heard him. He doesn’t know if Sabal is breathing. He knows he isn’t. With the last of his energy, he tilts his head back; looks past the gathering crowd of Golden Path members, up to the blue sky overhead, and somehow he finds the energy to bare his bloody teeth in a smile and laugh.

“ _Long live the fucking king_.”

**Author's Note:**

> please tell me your thoughts I wrote this in an hour and crave validation


End file.
